Building civic pride and engagement are essential for cities to thrive. This semester, teams of Creative Technology and Design (CTD) master’s students developed proposals in coordination with the City of Denver aiming to do just that.

The CTD program engages students in pursuing practical solutions to real-world design challenges by blending behavioral insights, technology, branding and marketing, and physical objects. This comprehensive approach can yield more meaningful outcomes than one-off fixes are often able to achieve.

Indeed, while CTD students pursue unique paths focusing on creative industries, social impact or performance technology, they also work on cross-disciplinary team projects that push their boundaries and prepare them to succeed in careers across many industries.

Many methods to design
This year’s cohort had the opportunity to collaborate with the City of Denver to propose solutions for two initiatives as part of Design Methods, a foundational class all CTD students complete.

By nature, good design has no one right approach. Design Methods, taught by Derek Friday and John Breznicky, familiarizes students with many different ways to address design prompts, including the concepts of deliberate observation (e.g. cultural probes, ethnography); “problem finding” and “design thinking”; “wicked problems”; iterative design; and alternative generation and assessment.

The class culminates with month-long final projects in which teams collaborate on proposals to  address real-life design needs. This semester, four teams of CTD master’s students worked on projects in partnership with the Denver Mayor’s Office to develop solutions to support two remarkable initiatives.

They delivered final presentations in ATLAS’s B2 Black Box Experimental Studio. In attendance were representatives from the City of Denver, including First Lady Johnston, and Tran Nguyen-Wills, Deputy Outreach Director, along with Josh Wills, Creative Director & Partner at Consume & Create. Each team’s members brought a variety of skills, talents and interests to their groups and collectively they proposed a series of multidisciplinary solutions.

Friday noted, “[The teams] were able to generate solid ideas based on the brief and using the process that we taught them during the semester with the caveat that [the process of] developing your own method for problem solving continues to evolve throughout your entire creative process… They were pros and we were really, really proud.”

Here is some of what the teams presented:

Little Saigon / Saigon Azteca

• Team 1 - Abena Gyimah, Julia McKeag, Harsita Rajendren, Shreya Pradeep Sekar, Justin Chan, Lavan Kumar Baskaran, Mythiresh Gajendra Babu
• Team 2 - Sylvia Robles, Colin Egge, Jax Whitham, Jacy Ashford, Ayesha Rawal, Noah Reardon
• Team 3 - Scott Ehrlich, Eli Skelly, Clayton Hester, Shraddha Shinde, Nick Barcalow, Arjun Ramachandran

is a vibrant cultural enclave known for its rich Vietnamese heritage and community dating back over 40 years, as well as a growing Hispanic community. The City of Denver has identified opportunities to enhance cultural preservation, spark economic development and engage the community in this district.

City designers presented this strategy: “Exploring the intersectionality of the AAPI and Latino/Indigenous cultures, including music, dance, and ceremonies, will result in a compelling brand that amplifies the rich heritage of the communities that call this Cultural District home.”

Three teams proposed comprehensive design solutions incorporating branding (logos, color palettes, typography) and digital solutions (web and mobile integrations) along with physical interventions ranging from modular planters to signage to walkability improvements.

In lieu of an ornamental archway over a busy thoroughfare to mark the neighborhood, one team proposed a pedestrian bridge incorporating cultural design elements, with the aim to improve accessibility and safety. This combination of aesthetic enhancement and cultural relevance combined with practical, human-scale problem-solving powered by technology exemplifies what makes the CTD program special.

Josh Will, who developed the project briefs the students worked from, noted in his feedback to one team, “Given the community’s curb appeal—or lack thereof—it’s a very vibrant district and community, and you have done a great job of taking everything that exists on the inside. When you go into a restaurant or any of the businesses, the community is very welcoming and energetic, uplifting, bright and vibrant. And throughout your entire visualization and also the physical planters and archways—you’ve taken what exists inside and brought it outside.”

Give5 Mile High
Team: Aaron Neyer, Elizabeth Saunders, Pavan Dayal, Shawn Duncan Jr., Stephanie Babb

is a citywide volunteer initiative led by First Lady of Denver Courtney Johnston and the Mayor’s Office outreach team. This program empowers Denverites to come together to strengthen the community through collective service.

The City of Denver’s design team identified two key needs to ensure Give5 Mile High success:

• A technology solution to support and connect volunteers, organizations and local businesses.
• A marketing campaign to raise awareness among key stakeholders.

The student team presented a detailed mock-up of a mobile app designed to simplify connectivity and improve participation in Give5 Mile High. They also built a comprehensive brand and marketing strategy incorporating social media and local influencers to boost program awareness and engagement.

In her feedback to the team, First Lady Johnston said, “This is exactly what we were hoping [the team] would achieve. It made sense to think this should be a very user-friendly app that invites people to participate, and you all did it. This is incredible. I love that there are lots of things we didn’t even think about that you can do.”

Mayor Johnston was able to view the presentation remotely and added, “What I love about it is that it fundamentally understands and accelerates the two major principles of the project. One—how to make it so much easier for folks to sign up—the ease of sign-up is so powerful that the app makes possible. The second is the idea that the service is an act of community building. It is a way in which you serve with other people that binds you together, and this seamlessly connects you to other people.”

Additional project presentations
Aside from the work with the City of Denver, two more student teams presented projects combining engineering, design, data and art. Take a look:

Climate Threads
Team: Sara Runkel, Robyn Marowitz, Caitlin Littlejohn, Kate Rooney

Climate Threads aims to raise awareness about air quality and its impact on public health. Through data visualization and textile design, invisible disparities in air quality become visible and tangible. Explore the data on the .

Confluence
Team: Abe Homer, Shalimar Alvarado Cruz Hebbeler, Abhinav Mehrotra, Alexander LaFontaine, Cambria Klinger

Confluence is an interactive, immersive experience that explores the artistry of water. The dynamic fluid simulation can be interacted with by tilting a cairn on all four axes. Laser-cut and built using chipboard, the cairn represents the confluence of both the digital and physical world. The installation was completed with the use of projection, spatial audio, and soft ambient lighting for a peaceful and immersive experience. Learn more on the .

Designing through radical creativity and inclusion
Gordon Müller-Seitz, guest researcher and Chair of Strategy, Innovation and Cooperation at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) in Germany, provided students support and guidance throughout the semester. In addressing attendees, he summed up the ATLAS program by saying, “I really appreciated that you live up to your motto that you strive for radical creativity. But it is not only radical creativity—it is also this radical inclusiveness.”

Learn more about the Creative Technology and Design master’s program

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A prolific artist who exhibits nationally and internationally, Joel Swanson is having a successful spring. On April 15, his work, "Binary Pronouns," began streaming on , a 150-foot long by 22-foot high array of 89 LED blades located in the lobby of the iconic 150 North Riverside building in Chicago. Earlier in the month, he joined a distinguished group of artists in the , an innovative art-loaning program linked to Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art that allows members to live with a work of contemporary art in their homes for several months before returning it to the collective. 

Swanson explains, "Since the Museum of Contemporary Art isn't a collecting museum and can’t technically buy artwork to support local artists, the Octopus Initiative is a way to support local artists and get their work into the hands of the public. They commission local artists to produce 25 works that then go on loan to the public through a free raffle system."

The brainchild of Adam Lerner, exiting director of the MCA, the Octopus Initiative maintains a rigorous evaluative process, beginning with a nomination from a leading member of the Denver arts community, followed by a review by Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art’s curatorial team who evaluates a nominee's suitability for the program, conducting studio visits and reviewing a wide body of work.

Swanson, who earned a BFA in digital art from CU Boulder, has exhibited his work extensively, including the Venice Biennale 2017; Republic Plaza in Denver (solo exhibition through June 12); the Broad Museum in Lansing, Michigan; The Power Plant in Toronto; the North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art; and Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, where he had a solo exhibition.

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The third class to graduate with the ATLAS Institute's Bachelor of Science degree in Technology, Arts & Media (TAM) includes 24 students, eight times the number of students to walk the aisle just one year ago when the institute’s first undergraduate degrees were conferred. 

The spring 2018 group graduates just three years after the interdisciplinary major in the College of Engineering and Applied Science was established. And looking ahead, projections are for nearly 60 additional students to graduate with TAM degrees during the 2018-19 school year, making it the fastest growing undergraduate degree programs at CU Boulder.
 
The TAM bachelor's degree grew out of the ATLAS Institute’s popular TAM minor and certificate programs, which were launched in the late 1990s and now enroll around 1,000 students, more than 50 percent of whom are women.  While students can combine the TAM minor or certificate with any undergraduate degree at CU Boulder, students must be admitted to the College of Engineering and Applied Science to pursue the TAM major.

Emma Wu displays a website she designed and coded.

“TAM is my favorite,” says Wu, who receives three degrees from three different colleges on May 10, along with a minor in business. “TAM truly allowed me to explore myself at the edge of technology and creativity. The instructors are so supportive of this community, and TAM is what I connect to the most because of the support.”
 
After graduation, Wu plans to look for a position as a user interface/user experience (UI/UX) designer in New York City.

“If I hadn’t taken David Schaal's Web class,  I wouldn't know how much I love web development and UI/UX design,” continues Wu, who has two jobs: a web and poster designer for CU Boulder’s Student Academic Success Center, and a digital designer for a private firm. “I worked on one of his projects till three in the morning and did not realize the time.” 

Graduate degrees
ATLAS also confers nine Master of Science degrees this May, including four from the Creative Technologies + Design (CTD) track and five from Information & Communication Technology for Development.

Angel Lam, a graduating CTD student advised by industry mentor Andy Stone, created “Yokaido” for her senior design project. A platform to leverage the collaborative energy of fandom, Yokaido provides a new way to share Japanese anime with the world. 

“From a very young age, anime has been my source of courage, passion and strength, and I wanted to share that with the world,” Lam says.  “I chose the CTD program because I wanted to start an anime company, and the program allowed me the flexibility to do so. I came to ATLAS to get the skills to turn it into a real company.”

Ian Smith focused on 3D design for his master's degree.

“I am leaving CTD with a whole range of computer science abilities I didn’t have before,” he says. “I never could have imagined two years ago that I would be programming network architecture. That’s been an interesting shift for me. It’s not something I was comfortable with, but now I can say, 'I know how to do it, and I know how to do it well.' ” 

As the door closes on another academic year, ATLAS is already busy laying plans for the fall and beyond, with new labs opening and existing academic programs expanding. “The next few years are going to be transformational for ATLAS,” says ATLAS Director Mark Gross. “This year has seen a lot of change, but it’s only the beginning.”

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